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THE TRENT AFFAIR 



AN AFTERMATH 



BY 

RICHARD HENRY DANA 



CAMBRIDGE 
1912 



THE TRENT AFFAIR 



AN AFTERMATH 



BY 



RICHARD HENRY DANA 



CAMBRIDGE 

1912 



■D/r 



From the 

Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society 

FOR March, 1912 



Gifl 

4UN 7 1911 



o 



THE TRENT AFFAIR — AN AFTERMATH. 



On November gth last our President, Mr. Charles Francis 
Adams, read a paper on the Trent Affair, taking the occasion of 
its fiftieth anniversary.^ 

During the Civil War Captain Charles Wilkes of the United 
States navy, in command of the San Jacinto, a United States 
war vessel, took from off the Trent, a British mail steamer run- 
ning between Havana in the island of Cuba and the island of 
St. Thomas, both neutral ports, Messrs. Mason and Slidell, 
two Confederate envoys sent out respectively to England 
and France, with their secretaries. This occurred on the 8th 
of November, 1861. It was done without any authority or 
knowledge on the part of the United States government.^ 
Messrs. Mason and SKdell had various despatches which were 
successfully concealed on the Trent; but the envoys were 
taken off and the Trent was allowed to go on her way. Messrs. 
Mason and SUdell were taken as prisoners in the San Jacinto 
to Fortress Monroe, November 15, and later moved to Fort 
Warren in Boston Harbor. The news reached Washington, 
Saturday, November 16. The seizure was first known in Eng- 
land, November 27, on the arrival at Southampton of the pas- 
sengers of the Trent. The news excited great rejoicing in the 
United States and intense indignation in Great Britain. One 
cause for the rejoicing at the North was that Mason was the 
author of the fugitive slave law and chiefly responsible for the 
decision of Virginia to secede. As Mr. Adams reminds us, 
there was no transatlantic cable in operation during the affair. 
It took from twelve to fourteen days for news to be carried be- 
tween Great Britain and the United States. 

^ See Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings, xlv. 35. 

2 For fuller account, see Mr. Adams' paper, and Harris, The Trent Afair, 
91-115. 



4 

Mr. Adams gives an account of how he, a youthful legal 
practitioner of twenty-six, after reading the announcement on 
the bulletin boards, hurried into the office of Mr. Richard 
H. Dana, Jr., with whom he had recently studied law, bear- 
ing the startHng news. As Mr. Adams says, "Mr. Dana was 
deemed as high an authority on maritime law as there was at 
the American bar." ''Well do I remember," says Mr. Adams, 
''his reception of it. His face Hghted up, and, clapping 
his hands with satisfaction over the tidings, he expressed his 
emphatic approval of the act, adding that he would risk his 
* professional reputation' on its legahty." ^ 

It seems quite clear that Mr. Adams thinks Mr. Dana's 
opinion as to the legahty of the act "did not have ... a 
justifying leg to stand upon." It is enough of an answer in 
order to sustain Mr. Dana's opinion to quote from the letter 
written by Lord Palmerston to J. T. Delane, the editor of the 
Times, on November ii, 1861, just after the affair had taken 
place, but before the news of it had reached England, and 
which is given in full in Mr. Adams' paper: 

94 Piccadilly, November 11, 1861. 

My dear Delane, — It may be useful to you to know that the 
Chancellor, Dr. Lushington, the three Law Officers, Sir G. Grey, 
the Duke of Somerset, and myself, met at the Treasury today to 
consider what we could properly do about the American cruiser, 
come, no doubt, to search the West Indian packet supposed to be 
bringing hither the two Southern envoys; and, much to my regret, 
it appeared that, according to the principles of international law 
laid down in our courts by Lord Stowell, and practised and en- 
forced by us, a belligerent has a right to stop and search any neutral 
not being a ship of war, and being found on the high seas and being 
suspected of carrying enemy's despatches; and that consequently 
this American cruiser might, by our own principles of international 
law, stop the West Indian packet, search her, and if the Southern 
men and their despatches and credentials were found on board, 
either take them out, or seize the packet and carry her back to New 
York for trial. 

The Chancellor was Lord Westbury, and he and Dr. Lushing- 
ton, the celebrated Admiralty Judge, constituted with the 
Law Officers the highest authority in England at that time 
on international law. 

^ P. 48, supra. 



I should note that during all the affair, till the prisoners 
were delivered up, and in which period, as Mr. Adams says, 
almost every one in the United States was carried off his feet, 
and so many holding prominent positions openly lent their 
names to the discussion, Mr. Dana never appeared before the 
public as committing himself on the subject. His first public 
utterance to which his name was attached was in support of 
the rendition and of the chief ground on which that was made. 
In the casual and private conversation with his recent law- 
student, he must have meant, even if he did not say so, legal 
according to British precedent. Mr. Dana was far too good 
an authority, and was far too familiar with the War of 1812 
and its causes, not to know that the United States denied 
England's right to take men (not in enemy's mihtary service) 
from neutral vessels. He was far too familiar with the efforts 
of his grandfather, Francis Dana, when Minister to Russia 
(though not officially accepted at court) , during the latter part 
of the Revolutionary War, in concert with American envoys 
to other courts, to work up European nations on that subject, 
not to know that other countries beside the United States 
were opposed to England's principles. 

Under these principles Great Britain had forcibly taken from 
neutral vessels her own subjects, or those she claimed or thought 
to be her own subjects, even though they were rendering no 
unneutral service, and even when the neutral vessel was 
going from one neutral port to another, and regardless 
whether the men were seamen or passengers,^ and for the 
sole purpose of securing their allegiance or service. This, as 
all authorities agree, was a claim of police authority on the 
high seas, and was not founded on the doctrine of belligerent 
acts of neutrals.^ 

Messrs. Mason and Slidell were still "citizens" of the United 
States.^ The independence of the Southern Confederacy had 

^ Two nephews of General Washington were taken from a neutral vessel by a 
British man-of-war on the supposition that they were Englishmen. 

2 Dana, Wheaton, 175 n, 646 n. 

5 See United States Constitution Preamble. "We the people of the United 
States ... do ordain and estabhsh this Constitution"; Art. I, § 2, par. 2 and 
§ 3, par. 3 provide that a United States senator or representative must be "a citizen 
of the United States " and " be an inhabitant of that State" for or in which he is 
chosen. By Art. VI, par. 3, United States "Senators and representatives . . . 
shall be bound by oath or affirmation to support this constitution." Both Mr. 
Mason and Mr. Slidell had been United States Senators. 



not been recognized by a single nation, and, under the British 
principles, we could take them out as our citizens to secure 
their allegiance, to say nothing of the fact that their despatches, 
we now know, included mihtary and belHgerent matter.^ But 
it is contended in Mr. Adams' paper that England had aban- 
doned her right of impressment, as it was called, for fifty years. 
Some writers in the EngHsh magazines, to justify England's 
inconsistent attitude, made that claim, to be sure; but no such 
writer ever made any such claim before the Trent Affair was 
known in England.^ Is that abandonment view well sus- 
tained? Not Only in 1814 and again in 18 18 did England refuse 
to abandon her claim, but in the correspondence between 
Mr. Webster and Lord Ashburton in 1842 she again refused; 
and in the Declaration of Paris, in 1856, which adopted for the 
leading European nations new articles on the rights of neu- 
trals, she would not abandon her claim; and as late as Decem- 
ber, i860. President Buchanan in his message to Congress 
said that "the claim on the part of Great Britain forcibly to 
visit and search American vessels on the high seas in time of 
peace has been abandoned," referring to the old claim of 181 2. 
This shows that she still claimed it in time of war; and Lord 
Palmerston's letter of November 11, 1861, two days after the 
seizure above referred to, still held to the old view. 

So far, I have been speaking, as my father spoke privately 
to his young friend and wrote confidentially to Mr. Adams 
in London, from the point of view of a lawyer. In Mr. Adams' 
recent paper it is asserted that we had outgrown any such 
principle. We surely had in America; but even if England 
had outgrown it, she had not admitted it nor changed her law. 
She came forward, however, as prosecuting officer to enforce 
within her own jurisdiction new rules which she adopted only 
after the seizure, — a clear case of ex post facto law, on her 
part.^ 

1 Mr. Dana, in his letter of November 25 to Mr. Adams, speaks of their "mis- 
sion" being "hostile," but to take them off the neutral vessel could be justified 
only on the English principles. See also notes on p. 7, infra. 

2 The London Times made this claim the day after (viz. on the 28th) and still 
more emphatically on the 29th and 30th of November, 1861. 

^ If we should have consented to play the war game under the British rules, 
was it sportsmanlike in Great Britain to change her rules after we had scored 
a point and insist on enforcing as against us this change? It may have been and 
was good policy for us to accept the change on her part, but was it fair for her to 
act as she did ? 



To the question of whether, aside from the English principles, 
Messrs. Mason and SHdell could be taken off the Trent, or 
whether the Trent could properly have been taken to a United 
States port and condemned by a prize court, I shall not enter in 
so short a paper further than to remark that a second opinion 
of the British Law Officers, modifying their first one of De- 
cember II, was in favor of the right to condemn the Trent if 
taken to a prize court; though still later, on January 23, 
1862, after the return of the prisoners, this was denied.^ As a 

1 The text-books at the time generally admitted the right to stop the am- 
bassador of an enemy on his passage (Wheaton, § 504; Phillimore, 368, § 27, 
369-374). This was based on the authority of Lord Stowell; but that opinion 
of Sto well's was obiter dictum, and the famous passage from Vattel misapplied. 
See Dana, Wheaton, 641 n; Harris, 249, Sir William Scott's (Lord Stowell) 
celebrated dictum reads as follows: "You may stop the ambassador of your 
enemy on his passage. Despatches are not less clearly contraband, and their 
bearers fall under the same condemnation; . . . when it is of sufficient import- 
ance to the enemy that persons shall be sent on the public service at the public 
expense, it is only reasonable that it should afford equal ground of forfeiture 
against a vessel that it has been let out for a purpose so intimately connected with 
hostile operations." Dana, Wheaton, 645 n. Vattel's statement, on which this 
dictum is based, clearly refers to the right to stop outgoing ambassadors on the 
territory or vessels of either party to the war, and not on neutral territory or 
vessels. 

The claim of the Duke of Argyll that the termini being neutral ports wholly 
exonerates the Trent and which Mr. Adams sustains in his paper, is not well 
founded in International Law. The neutrality of the termini has an important 
bearing on the weight of evidence required for condemnation but is not conclu- 
sive of innocence. It is a question of the ultimate destiny. See Dana, Wheaton, 
652 n, 667 n; also the Declaration of London (1909), Art. 30, and Wilson and 
Tucker, International Law (1909), 339. If we had had a right to take off the 
envoys at all, it was not necessary that the voyage should have been a "continuous" 
one from an enemy's port to s.ustain that right. 

For an instance where an attempt was made to take an enemy's ambassador 
from a neutral vessel going from one neutral port to another, we have the case of 
the British war ship Africa which in 1795 entered American waters for the avowed 
intention of seizing M. Fauchet, the French minister to the United States. He 
was on board the packet Peggy, a neutral American vessel going from New York 
to Newport, R. L, but hearing of the intention of the commander of the Africa 
he left the Peggy at Stonington. The Peggy was stopped, boarded, and thoroughly 
searched from the Africa, and great disappointment was shown on account of 
the absence of M. Fauchet. The British vice-consul at Newport aided in the 
matter. See Harris, 278; Senate Executive Document, No. 4, 3d Session, 37th 
Congress. 

Mr. Adams in his paper, arguing against the acts of Commodore Wilkes, 
speaks of the absurdity of such right of search in modern times, instancing the 
possible stopping of the Lusitania or the Oceanic by a Mexican or Portuguese 
battleship. It may be remarked that although carrying envoys and diplomatic 
despatches is not to-day belligerent service, yet the Declaration of London of 
1909, signed on behalf of the ten chief maritime powers of the world and purporting 



8 

minor matter, I may state in passing that the claim in Mr. 
Adams' paper that it was absurd to class Messrs. Mason and Sli- 
dell as envoys, as they were only private citizens, is not upheld 
by Lord Russell, who in his letter to Lord Lyons of January 
23, 1862, replying to Seward's letter of December 26, claimed 
that these gentlemen and their despatches had the protection 
of ambassadors, on the ground that they were envoys from 
a de facto state whose belligerency was generally recognized. 

Now, from the point of view of statesmanship, Mr. Adams, 
our Minister to England, was wholly right, and deserves, as he 
does for his many other acts during the trying period when 
he was in London, the highest praise. This Mr. Dana very 
properly acknowledged in his letter to Mr. Adams of Janu- 
ary 19, 1862, written after the surrender, saying, ^'You saw the 
question as a statesman, I only as a lawyer." Indeed, Mr. 
Dana did not discuss the advisabiHty of surrendering the 
men regardless of the English law, but discussed only our 
legal rights. I wish to point out that Mr. Dana in this letter 
made no admission that he was wrong as to the British prin- 
ciples of law then in force. Mr. Adams had had no controversy 
with Mr. Dana on that point. He admitted it, when he called 
those principles "cast-off rags," recently ''cast-off" only, as 
Mr. Adams said, "because the sin had become inconvenient." 
Mr. Dana was not acting in a position of responsibility. To 
illustrate how that may affect one, let me recall that in 1867, 
when Mr. Dana was retained by the United States Govern- 
ment as counsel for the trial of Jefferson Davis for high treason, 
after giving the law and showing how an impartial jury might 
legally be selected, perhaps from the State of Pennsylvania 
where Davis' troops had been fighting, he took the view of the 
statesman and not of the lawyer, and strongly recommended as 

to state "the generally recognized principles of international law," allows on mere 
suspicion the right of stoppage, visit, and search, resistance to which would 
subject the vessel and her owner's goods to condemnation. Some instances of 
belligerent service are, carrying an individual embodied in the armed force of an 
enemy, or contraband goods, which are carefully defined, or making a voyage 
"with a view to the transmission of information in the interest of the enemy," 
or with knowledge of the owner " transporting one or more persons who, during 
the voyage, lend assistance to the operations of the enemy"; and the fact that 
the voyage is from one neutral port to another is no defence if the ultimate des- 
tination is for the enemy. See Wilson and Tucker, International Law, 450- 
468. 



the wisest and best policy for the future of our reunited country 
the release of Mr. Davis. 

Mr. Sumner's great speech in the Senate upholding the 
return was made on January 12, just two weeks after Mason and 
Slidell had been given up. Before that date Mr. Dana, who 
was in Washington to argue a case before the Supreme Court 
and to consult regarding the prize cases, had become thor- 
oughly converted to the extra-legal view of accepting England's 
demand as an abandonment of her old principles, surrender- 
ing the prisoners on that ground, and thus establishing our views 
of what the law ought to be. I have the most distinct recollec- 
tion of his return and of his enthusiasm for this the chief ground 
on which the return was made, and of Seward's letter,^ as, in 
the main, a statesmanlike paper. 

As to the threats of war by Great Britain and her '^ bullying 
attitude" and Mr. Dana's comments on this phase of the 
"Affair" in his notes to Wheaton, the recent paper of our 
President truly says, Mr. Dana made the mistake of saying that 
"The news of the capture of Messrs. Mason and Slidell reached 
Washington about the same time it reached London," ^ and 
then adds, "the error vitiates Mr. Dana's whole criticism." 
Strangely enough, the dates of the facts which Mr. Adams 
cites, when examined in their turn, vitiate Mr. Adams' vitia- 
tion, if one bears in mind the absence of the Atlantic cable. 
The news of the seizure reached Washington Saturday, Novem- 
ber 16,^ and London, November 27, or eleven days later. The 
threats of war in England were made immediately in public 
meetings and in the press .^ Preparations for war were begun 
at once, "on a scale which was sufficient to tax the utmost 
resources of the United Kingdom," "" with work day, night, 
and Sundays; troops were immediately ordered to Canada, 
cannon bought, the navy put on a war footing, a shipment of 

^ Lothrop, William H. Seward, 302; and Dana to Adams, p. 131, supra. Letters 
show that Mr. Dana was in Washington from about January 2 to the 15th, 
1862. 

2 Mr. Dana's conclusion that "each side [was] acting without hearing from 
the other" till the very last (655 n) is, however, true, as shown below. 

^ Too late for more than a mere notice in the Saturday evening papers. The 
rejoicing did not appear till Monday, the i8th. 

^ The Liverpool meeting of "indignation" at the " outrage on the British flag " . 
was held at 3 p. m. on the afternoon of the 27th. Harris, 146; London Times, 
November 28, 1861. ^ Harris, 141. 



lO 

saltpetre to the United States Government stopped, a letter 
written to the Canadian authorities to prepare for war, and a 
peremptory demand made to the United States to be answered 
in seven days, with the alternative of the withdrawal of the 
British Minister from Washington, — all consummated by 
the 30th of November. 1 Now, Mr. Adams gives it as the excuse 
for this warlike and *' bullying" attitude that England had 
been aroused by the events in America during the eleven days 
between November 16 and 27. But it took twelve days for 
news to go from New York to London. The i6th was Saturday. 
An examination of the United States newspapers shows that 
only a brief and somewhat incorrect statement appeared that 
afternoon, with no editorials. There were no Sunday papers. 
The first ''rejoicings" appear in the United States papers of 
Monday, the i8th. There were no Monday or Tuesday saiUngs. 
News of Wednesday the 20th would not arrive in London till 
about December 2. Now, let us turn to the London Times. 
Its files show that not even the news of the first popular, unoffi- 
cial ''rejoicings" had reached London by the eventful 30th, — 
the day of war preparations begun and peremptory demand 
sent. The Times of the 30th states : "The public advices by this 
arrival [the last from the United States] do not mention the 
arrival of the San Jacinto at any American port." The first 
news of the "rejoicings" appears in the Times of December 
3,2 brought by steamer leaving New York November 20. So 
Mr. Adams' words "about^the same time," referring to news 
of our "rejoicings" and "slopping over" reaching England 
when she first heard of the seizure, also need to be changed. 

The chief events Mr. Adams refers to in this connection 
were the indiscreet speeches of the Governor of Massachu- 
setts, the Chief Justice of the State, and others at the Wilkes 

1 Bancroft, Seward^ ii. 226, 227. See also London Times, November 30, p. 9. 
The royal order preventing the shipment of any saltpetre to the United States, 
as the London Times, December 2, said, "to prevent a power so arrogant and so 
much under the influence of passion from obtaining materials of war which may 
hereafter be turned against us," was dated November 30. The transport Mel- 
home was chartered for troops and war material to be carried to America, No- 
vember 30. For some other war preparations of the same date see the London 
Times, December 2, p. 7, col. 6. 

2 In the Times of December 2 appears a notice of the arrival of the San Jacinto, 
and a telegram from Queenstown of news from New York to the 20th, but no 
details. 



II 

dinner given in Boston on the evening of November 26. They 
were printed in the Boston papers of November 27, only 
three days before the eventful 30th. 

The only possible question remaining is, whether the EngHsh 
preparations for war might have ceased after November 30, 
say December 12, had not the news of this Boston dinner and 
other rejoicings reached the British Government. There are no 
indications that such is the fact.^ Though Boston is the "hub 
of the universe," it was not for Great Britain the centre of 
diplomatic influence; and I doubt if these speeches would have 
had any more influence in England than a speech of the mayor 
of Birmingham would have had with us; but at all events, even 
supposing that the British Government would have ceased its 
preparation for war, cancelled the orders for arms, ammunition, 
and cannon, stopped work at her arsenals and on her ships, re- 
called her troops, and let the saltpetre, etc., go to the United 
States, news of this supposed change of attitude, had it taken 
place, could not have reached Washington before the Cabinet 
decision made December 26. 

As to other happenings in the eleven days, news of the reso- 
lution of the national House of Representatives thanking Wilkes 
passed December 2, was first pubHshed in England December 
17; and that of the half-approval and half-disapproval of 
Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy, dated November 30, 
had not reached London by December 20. 

The London Times of December 3 and 4, after hearing of our 
" rejoicings," shows that the New York Tribune, the chief United 
States Government organ, suggested, and the New York Commer- 
cial Advertiser advised, returning the envoys. The London 
Times editorials of these two days were more stirred up by the 
absurd fictions from its own New York correspondent ^ than 

1 The London Times of December 11, saying there was no news from the 
United States later than November 25 (the day before the Boston dinner to 
Wilkes), still speaks of "war." The preparations had been going on, though the 
London Times of December 9 speaks of "a rapid subsidence of bluster" in the 
United States. For example, the transport Australia, engaged December 5, 
took on some troops for Canada December 11 and 12. 

2 The editorial in the London Ti^nes of December 3, says: "The news shows 
that the Federal public and forces have received their Commodore's exploit with 
considerable misgivings as to consequences. . . . Some portion of the New York 
press discovered immediately the weakness of their case." It then goes on to speak 
of the "violent acts of four boats' crew of American seamen," and "these cutlass- 
See table of Dates of Events, page 20 infra. 



12 

by the actual statements in the United States papers. The 
London Times editorials show manifest unfairness in handhng 
the material of its own news columns.^ 

There seems to be ''nothing," then, '' that called for a menace 
of war"; news reaching England December 3 could not have 
caused the action of November 30; and Mr. Adams' whole 
argument on this point falls to the ground. 

In justice to Lord Russell it should be stated that on this same 
November 30 he addressed a second private letter to Lord 
Lyons, saying, "if asked, you will say that you desire to abstain 
from anything like menace." ^ 

This letter was never shown to Mr. Seward, and the fact of a 
menace of war, the demand for return and apology, and the 
seven-days limit were all that were known to our Cabinet. 

An explanation for the hurried despatch of troops to Canada 
has been attempted of late years on behalf of Great Britain, 
namely, that this was the ordinary manoeuvre of troops to 

and-pistol-bearing Judges of the American Admiralty," and of a rumor that 
" Captain Wilkes is reported to have said * right or wrong, these men had to be 
rescued,' " as far worse than the seizure itself. As a matter of fact the envoys were 
taken off with the least possible show of force, and the Slidell family had so testi- 
fied at the official hearing, November 27; but the London press preferred to be- 
lieve the absurd and unsustained stories of Commander Williams, who had been in 
charge of the mails on the Trent, as to how he had thrown his body in front of the 
Yankee bayonets to save the life of the helpless Miss Slidell. The New York 
correspondent's story which the Times swallowed whole and repeated editorially 
was, "that the seizure of the Trent is but the first of a series of similar acts; that 
steamers are being fitted out at New York for the express purpose of committing 
similar outrages upon our flag; that they have been designedly entrusted to the 
command of ' young officers,' and that those ' young officers ' have been author- 
ized to exercise great latitude in the execution of their instructions and have 
received assurances in advance of the support of the Government." 

^ Though on December 3 it prints some extracts from New York papers that 
favored giving up the envoys, in its editorial of December 4 it purports to fur- 
nish a summary of the Northern press and quotes only such passages as were 
hostile to Great Britain. 

2 This menace existed in fact if not explicitly on paper. Joab's words to 
Amasa as he smote him in the fifth rib were, ''Art thou in health, my brother?" 
(Congressman Thomas of Massachusetts, Harris, 228). But after all, this second 
letter may show that Lincoln rightly applied to the situation his story of the two 
quarrelsome dogs on opposite sides of the fence who on finding an unexpected 
opening instead of attacking each other, turned and ran away. Harris, 186. As 
against England there was the sudden appearance of two Russian fleets, one in 
San Francisco and one in New York, friendly to the United States, with sealed 
orders to be broken only in case of war between Great Britain and the United 
States. Russia was still smarting from her defeat in the Crimean War, for which 
England was so largely responsible. Harris, 209-210. 



13 

Canada about that time of year. In reply it should be stated 
that large numbers of extra troops had been sent to Canada the 
previous summer.^ The order was for thirty thousand men of 
the best fighting regiments of England (far beyond the usual 
quota) ; and the hurry in sending troops at this time was so great 
that the Persia was taken off her regular passages, and among 
the transports used was an American side-wheeler, the Adriatic ^ 
bought and so hastily fitted up that even the American flag on 
her paddle-box was not painted out. To show the spirit in 
which the troops left, a military band on board one of the trans- 
ports played '^ Dixie," the favorite Southern tune. The justifi- 
cation of England's threatening attitude having failed, then, 
let me state that Mr. Dana's notes on Wheaton in 1866 only 
recorded what all the authorities at the time felt, and all, I 
believe, except Mr. Adams in his recent paper, have felt since, 
that England's course in this matter was unfriendly — some 
calling it ''bullying" — and certainly a departure from the usual 
methods employed in diplomacy in such a case as this, which 
would be, even when the rules of International Law were more 
clearly broken, to call the attention of the Government to the 
facts, assume that the act was done without authority, ask for 
an explanation,^ and only threaten war as a last resort, perhaps 
after refusal to arbitrate, never as the first step. As Mr. Harris 
has shown in a most conclusive manner in his The Trent Affair, 
the ruling class of Great Britain was intensely hostile to the 
North, beginning with the letter of Lord John Russell of Feb- 
ruary 20, 186 1, which came like a bolt from a clear sky after the 
unusually friendly relations following the visit of the Prince of 
Wales to the United States in i860. This letter of Lord John 
Russell was most remarkable for its insulting language. It was 
written two weeks before the inauguration of Lincoln, and says, 
"Suppose, however, that Lincoln acting under bad advice should 
make political capital out of blustering demonstrations," the 
British patience "might be tried too far." Then there followed 
a series of articles in the papers and magazines, speeches by 
Lord Palmerston, Lord John Russell, Gladstone, and others, 

^ Harris, 61. 

2 Dana, Wheaton, 653 n; Harris, 271. In case there was a mistake compensa- 
tion would be expected as well as return. See also Declaration of London (1909), 
Art. 64. 



14 

attacking the Northerners and showing confidence in the 
success of the Southern cause.^ Lord Coleridge told me that 
in those days a dinner party he attended in London was 
broken up, because some one took the side of the North. 

The ruhng class in Great Britain were in truth hostile to the 
North and ready to be stirred up to warlike measures at the 
first excuse, and the Trent affair was prized as such. 

On the same day that the news of the Boston dinner was 
published in the American papers, Mr. Seward wrote from Wash- 
ington a letter to Adams in London, stating that Wilkes acted 
without the knowledge or authority of the United States Gov- 
ernment, and that the Government was ready to consider the 
whole matter fairly. To show the spirit in which the British 
Government was acting, though the Government press had been 
constantly stating that the act was authorized, and indeed, part 
of a plan of Seward's for insulting Great Britain,^ no denial was 
made from the Foreign Office, and the truth only came out in a 
roundabout way later. In addition to this, it now appears 
that Miss SHdell, who was among the Trent passengers who 
carried the first news to England November 27, immediately 
told the British ministry that the American officer who boarded 
the Trent took pains to state that the commander of the San 
Jacinto had no instructions from his Government, but was 
acting on his own responsibihty.^ We know, too, that the 
original draft of Lord John Russell's letter as submitted to the 
Queen and the Prince Consort was so hostile in its form that 
the Prince Consort insisted upon its revision, — the last pubhc 
act in the Hfe of that noble man. We do not know the exact 
contents of the original draft, but we have learned that it had 
the words "wanton insult." The Queen's suggestions were 
adopted in the main, but couched in language less courteous 
than hers. 

1 Harris, 17-59; Morley, Life of Gladstone (1903), 69-86; Life and Corre- 
spondence of Lord Coleridge (1904), n. 1-5. 

2 This was based on some misunderstanding by the Duke of Newcastle when 
he was in the United States in the Fall of i860. He related how Seward told him 
he was about to have a very high office in the Federal Government, "and it will 
become my duty to insult England, and I mean to do so." This story was con- 
stantly repeated in the London press and believed generally. 

3 Lothrop, William II. Seward, 299. This statement of Miss Slidell was not 
known to Mr. Harris in 1896, when he wrote his admirable book on The Trent 
Affair. 



15 

Mr. Adams suggests as justifying England's threat of war 
and her peremptory and offensive demand some American 
examples, one, the course adopted towards the United States of 
Colombia in respect to the independent Republic of Panama 
and the Panama Canal. In the Hght of recent research,^ we 
trust this will never be considered a precedent for anything 
in the past or the future; but another instance cited by Mr. 
Adams, namely, the memorable message in the Venezuelan 
affair which President Cleveland directed to Great Britain on 
December 17, 1895, is worth comparing. Great Britain was then 
at peace, in possession of an enormous navy. The subject 
had been presented to her time after time in diplomatic mes- 
sages,^ only to be pigeon-holed. There was immediate danger 
of war breaking out between Great Britain and Venezuela 
which might arouse a war-cry in America over the Monroe 
doctrine and Cleveland's demand was for arbitration. To make 
America's attitude in the case parallel to England's in the Trent 
Affair, it should have been something Hke this, — that, with no 
previous diplomatic correspondence on the siibject, the United 
States should demand in seven days the ceding of a definite 
tract of territory to Venezuela, on a threat of war, at a time 
when England was fighting for her very life, let us say, with 
Germany, and a refusal to allow the matter to be arbitrated. 
Indeed, the threat of war, when we had one of immense pro- 
portions on our hands already, is the only thing that has given 
the Trent Affair jts real importance and differentiated it from 
the hundreds of other cases of the exercise of the right of search 
of neutral vessels on the high seas which have continued up 
to this very day.^ In the present war between Italy and Turkey 
there have been several including the British steamer Egyptian 
Prince, going from Alexandria to Malta, both neutral ports, 
January 2, 191 2; in the Chino- Japan War of 1894 there were 
eighty-one; and in the Russo-Japanese War of 1 904-1 905 sixty- 
four neutral vessels visited and searched. In two instances 
in the present war between Italy and Turkey, persons were 
taken off French vessels going between neutral ports without 

1 " A Chapter of National Dishonor," by Dr. Chamberlain, in North American 
Review, February, 191 2, 145-174. 

2 About forty in all. 

3 Even unlawful acts following the search have not been made a cause of war. 
Dana, Wheaton, 653 n. 



i6 

causing any threat of war or unusual preparations for it by the 
neutral government concerned. It was the disgrace of having 
to yield to such threats that made it so hard to give up the 
prisoners; and whatever may be said of the great length of 
Seward's letter, its sublimated passages, refined reasoning, and 
one bombastic sentence, in the main it was, as most authorities 
agree, a statesmanlike paper.^ It adopted the very ground sug- 
gested by Mr. Adams, our Minister in London, by Sumner here, 
and by General Scott in Paris, that of giving up the envoys on 
the understanding that it was a moral victory for America in 
her contention for greater Hberty to neutrals, and the disavowal 
and final abandonment by Great Britain of her claim of right 
in case of search to look for her own subjects and take them off 
the decks of neutral vessels. This chief ground for the surrender 
was what reconciled the Cabinet, Mr. Dana, and others to what 
otherwise would have been a humiliation, and formed the chief 
theme of Sumner's great speech in the Senate on January lo, 
1862. Strangely enough, this point seems to have been lost 
sight of in later times. Mr. Adams' paper passes it over, though 
it is the very position he now suggests Seward should have taken 
on November 16, 1861, or, at least, on December 12. I find, too, 
in such good recent histories as that of Rhodes and Woodrow 
Wilson, that this portion of Seward's letter is not referred to. 
Harris clearly mentions it, but hardly gives it its due moral 
emphasis. Moore's very full Digest of International Law, though 
it gives all that part of Seward's letter which leads up to the 
final sentence, that sentence which Seward considered the 
climax of the whole is omitted. The last portion of Seward's 
letter reads as follows: 

*' This Government after full examination of the subject decided 
that it could not detain the persons taken from the Trent by Captain 
Wilkes without disavowing its own liberal interpretations of the law 
of maritime war," and then, after quoting from the correspondence 
between James Madison, Secretary of State in the administration 
of Thomas Jefferson, to James Monroe, Minister to England in 1804, 
regarding England's old claims, goes on to the climax: "nor have 
I been tempted at all by suggestions that cases might be found in 
history where Great Britain refused to yield to other nations and even 

^ "Most critics pronounce it a very able state paper." Harris, 221. Lothrop, 
Seward, 313; Bancroft, Seward, n. 253. 



I? 

to ourselves claims like that which is now before us. . . . She 
could in no other way so effectually disavow any such injury, as we 
think she does, by assuming now as her own, the ground upon which 
we then stood." ^ 

The reasoning of this part of Seward's letter is so like the 
editorial in the New York Tribune of November 20, quoted 
in the London Times of December 3, that it seems as if this edi- 
torial was inspired from our State Department, and strengthens 
the contention that Seward favored the return from the 
beginning.^ 

As abandoning forever the old claims of the War of 181 2, we 
have Lord Russell's letter of January 26, 1862, in which he 
accepts Seward's claim that the United States would expect 
from Great Britain, or from any other friendly nation, the 
same reparation in a similar case.^ Lord John Russell, in an- 
nouncing the surrender in Parliament, made no mention of 
the real grounds on which it was made. In 1875 and 1876 
I frequently visited Lord John Russell at Pembroke Lodge, 
and I had the audacity to ask the Earl one day why he had not 
stated these grounds to Parliament, as I thought such a state- 
ment would have very much allayed the ill-feeling that had 
been aroused in America over the affair. Lord Russell's reply 
was that Seward's letters were so long and verbose. Though 
the answer was unsatisfactory, it was a warning against too 
long preambles. The letter has something like ten printed pages 
of preamble before the climax is reached. Had it consisted of 
the last few paragraphs only, with the rest in an appendix, 
its real purport could not have been hidden. 

1 Senate Executive Document, No. 8, 2d Session, 37th Congress, iv. 4-13. Sew- 
ard's letter is not printed in the volume of diplomatic correspondence which contains 
some of the other correspondence on the Trent Affair, and in the only contemporary 
United States document where it appears it is so badly indexed that no one could 
find it without knowing previously that the letter existed and the date on which 
it was written. This may account for the passing out of mind of the most impor- 
tant part of Seward's letter. [The letter to Lord Lyons, dated December 26, 
1861, will be found in War Records, Series II, n. 1145. Ed] 

2 To be sure Seward and Horace Greeley were at sword's points politically; 
but this was a period of respite in their quarrels. The New York Times, personally 
more friendly with Seward, had some early suggestions of the surrender. See also 
Bancroft, Seward, 11. 232-234, where it is maintained that Seward was against 
keeping the Southern envoys. 

3 Executive Document, No. 46, 2d Session, 37th Congress, in. 3. 



i8 

London Punch gives a very good idea of current history. 
The first issue after the British demand, that of December 7, 
1 86 1, represents huge Jack Bull threatening a small Jonathan 
and saying, ''You do what 's right, my son, or I '11 blow you out 
of the water." The next week appeared two cartoons, one in 
which Mr. Bull says, "Now mind you, Sir — no shuffiing — 
an ample apology, — or I put the matter in the hands of my 
lawyers, Messrs. Whitworth and Armstrong " (the firm manu- 
facturing and supplying cannon for the British navy). The 
other represents Britannia standing on a war-ship by a huge 
cannon loaded and capped^ with a halyard in her hand, looking 
across the ocean, and underneath, "Waiting for an Answer." 
On December 28 Punch pictured "Columbia's Fix" — "Which 
Answer shall I send, [Peace or War]?" There was no doubt 
from this and from the London Times and all the EngHsh papers 
that the threat of war was clear in the British mind from the very 
first news of the seizure. 

Now, what happened after the surrender? Had it been gra- 
ciously received on the other side with some due recognition of 
the inconsistency of England's attitude, or at least some indi- 
cation of her willingness to come to the American point of 
view, it would have done much to make friends with America. 
It was not even received in silence. It was received with 
taunts and abuse in the press and by the public men.^ Punch 
of January 11, 1862, had a cartoon called "Up a Tree," repre- 
senting a coon with the head of Lincoln among the branches, 
and John Bull pointing a loaded gun. The lines below are as 
follows: "Col. Bull and the Yankee 'Coon. 'Coon: 'Air you 
in arnest, Colonel?' Colonel Bull: 'I am.' 'Coon: 'Don't fire; 
I '11 come down.'' " The true cartoon would have been Jonathan 
fighting for his Hfe in a duel with a slave owner, and John Bull 
saying, "I'll stab you in the back if you don't stop doing 
what I always did myself." The other cartoon was "Naughty 
Jonathan," — Mrs. Britannia saying to Earl Russell, "There, 
John! He says he is very sorry and that he didn't mean 
to do it. So you can put this back into the pickle-tub " ("this" 
being a bunch of birch rods). This unfriendly attitude did 
more even than the original demand to stir up that desire for 
revenge which was so common in our country for many years 

* See Gladstone's Edinburgh speech, January, 1862. Harris, 235. 



19 

after the Civil War.^ Good Mr. Longfellow, who had sub- 
scribed for Punch from its beginning in 1841, closed his sub- 
scription with this volume. 

I visited Inverary in 1875, when there were present the 
Duke and Duchess of Argyll (she being the daughter of the 
celebrated Duchess of Sutherland), the Marquis of Lome and 
Princess Louise, Earl Shaftesbury, Lord Edward Cavendish 
(brother of Lord Frederick Cavendish who was assassinated in 
Phoenix Park), and some other members of the nobihty, all I 
have mentioned by name being friends of Sumner. The Duchess 
asked me how it was that Sumner, who had so many warm 
friends in England, became so hostile to the country during 
the War. I gave as answer, first, his regret that England, the 
great anti-slavery country, should have sided with the South, 
and, second, an outHne of the Trent Affair, with some of the 
points I have given here, presenting to the Duchess and those 
about her an entirely new view of the case, which they agreed 
did much to explain Sumner's state of mind. 

Perhaps it is better to bury England's attitude m forgetful- 
ness for the sake of friendship with her and the peace of the 
world; but if we do call it to remembrance, let us recall it cor- 
rectly, and if we do bury it, let us not write on the tombstone 
"Justified," but rather "Forgiven." 

> Tames Russell Lowell has written: "The laity in any country do not stop to 
consider points of law, but they have an instinctive perception of the ammus that 
actuates the policy of a foreign nation." 



20 



Dates of Events. 



On the West Side of the Atlantic. 
1861 
Nov. 8 Trent stopped and envoys 
taken off. 



16 



Dec. 



26 



1862 
Jan. 9 



(Sat.) The seizure known in 
the U.S. Brief statement 
only in Sat. P. M. papers. 

First rejoicings appear in 
U. S. papers. 



27 Speeches of Boston dinner 
to Wilkes of evening be- 
fore, first published. 



30 Letter of Welles, Sec'y of 
Navy, to Wilkes. 

2 Resolutions of U. S. House 
of Representatives thank-" 
ing Wilkes. 

12 News of England's hostile 
attitude first reaches the 
U. S. 

18 Lord Russell's demand 
reaches the U. S. 

20 The same presented to 
Seward. 



Letter of Seward to Lord 
Lyons delivering up 
Mason and Slidell. 



Sumner's speech in the Sen- 
nate sustaining the re- 
turn of the envoys. 



On the East Side of the Atlantic. 

Nov. II Private letter of Palmerston 
to Delane stating U. S. 
would have a right to 
take off Mason & Slidell 
under English precedents. 

27 Seizure first known in Eng- 
land. Liverpool indig- 
nation meeting 3 p. m. 

30 Lord Russell's peremptory 
demand for surrender 
and apology in seven 
days, or English ambas- 
sador to remove from 
Washington, and war 
preparations in Great 
Britain begun. 

.Dec. 3 First news of rejoicings in 
U. S. appears in London 
Times. 



_i2 News of Boston dinner 
speeches first appears in 
London Times. 

(Letter of Welles to 
Wilkes does not appear in 
Tifnes at this period. It 
must have been kept 
private at first.) 

.17 News of the resolutions of 
the U. S. House of Rep- 
resentatives of Dec. 2 
first appears in London 
Times. 



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